Penny Wong
Australian Finance Minister Penny Wong speaks during an interview after a meeting between Finance Ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Moscow August 30, 2012. Asia-Pacific finance officials agreed that any protectionist measures, especially in the agricultural sector, are not helping global economic growth, Russia's Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Thursday. Reuters/Maxim Shemetov

Labor leaders are now pushing Governor General Peter Cosgrove to remove Unions Royals Commissioner Dyson Heydon from his position. On Aug. 21, four groups of Labor members went to the commissioner with an application requesting him to leave his post.

In April 2014, Heydon agreed to deliver a speech in August 2015 at the Annual Sir Garfield Barwick Address organised by the Lawyers Branch and the Legal Policy Branch of the NSW Division of the Liberals in Australia. Heydon did not agree to the call for his removal from the post and dismissed it. The dismissal of application by Heydon has prompted the Labor leaders to take their demand to the next level and ask the governor general to forcefully remove the commissioner.

Labor frontbencher Penny Wong finds it regrettable, but at the same time, she insisted on the necessity of using the parliament time to convey their demands to Cosgrove. “It is regrettable that the Senate has to consider such a resolution given the circumstances but given that Tony Abbott is refusing to act ... really it’s up to the parliament to act,” Senator Wong told ABC radio on Tuesday.

Attorney General Mark Dreyfus stated that this partial act has completely destructed the royalty of the post that Heydon holds. Dreyfus has always been against Heydon’s agreement to deliver speech in the event organised by the Liberals. He claimed that the royal commissioner had been paid for the speech and the amount would be used for state election campaigning.

Earlier, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that the Labor members should use a valid protocol to file application against Heydon. The Australian Council of Trade Unions, or ACTU, can lodge its complaint until 2 pm Thursday and it will be heard on Friday morning in Sydney. “The more his connections with the Liberal party become apparent the more difficult it is to give him the benefit of the doubt but I still think he’s an honourable man,” human rights lawyer Julian Burnside said.

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